


In her heart

by Impernia



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26672293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impernia/pseuds/Impernia
Summary: They wrote a whole song about Mike being a bad player.Jaylen isn’t sure what to think about that. She was gone for... She’s not even entirely sure how long it was, honestly. Time doesn’t feel like it’s real anymore, or like it matters, which is.... Yeah. Trying to figure out all the things she missed is a weird experience. A lot of albums, for one.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	In her heart

**Author's Note:**

> What's up everybody, the latest Garages album made me cry and I had to write this so it was written and no longer in my head where it has been haunting me since yesterday!

They wrote a whole song about Mike being a bad player. 

Jaylen isn’t sure what to think about that. She was gone for...She’s not even entirely sure how long it was, honestly. Time doesn’t feel like it’s real anymore, or like it matters, which is....Yeah. Trying to figure out all the things she missed is a weird experience. A lot of albums, for one. A hellmouth opened up at some stage? People keep getting put in peanuts, and there's blood and there's birds and just. This is apparently just what Blaseball is now. She can’t find Mike, either. Everyone on the team agrees that he’s around, everybody knows he’s somewhere, but nobody can give her a straight answer on where he actually _is_. She’s seen him out the corner of her eye going past, heard his voice in the room just over. He’s never there when she looks.

But they wrote a whole song about him being bad, and there’s a whole rambling chunk of him just talking at the end of _Park It_ where he’d kept talking about how he wished he was more like her. The same track where they’d sung about how they were gonna win in spite of him being on the team, how they needed less people like him around.

She’d felt cold when she heard that. Her fingers go to her wrist. The steady beat of the pulse is still there, still going.

(Would they have dragged her back, if she’d been the second one down and not the first?)

They’ve written so much. What a fucking _legacy_ they’ve given her. Don’t forget Jaylen, do it for Jaylen, fight the gods to take back what they stole. Twelve people _died_ last season because of her, and she can still feel the weight of that debt sitting in her chest. Twelve lives for one wasn’t enough, apparently. How many are going to be enough? She loves her friends. She loves playing. She loves the cheer of the crowd, the thrill of a good game, the satisfaction of knowing she’s done _good_ out there. She’s happy to be back, gods only know there’s nowhere else she’d rather be, but...

Fingers to the beat. Still there.

(If the fire had taken Mike instead of her, would the team have gone through with their plan?)

It doesn’t feel real, sometimes. Like she’s a ghost, or maybe everyone else is. Stuck going through the same motions over and over, waiting to wake up from some kind of dream. It’s making it real hard to get up in the mornings, sometimes, or get to practice. She’s not sure she trusts herself to drive anymore. She’s fine once she’s playing - everything just seems to suddenly come into focus like that. Like she’s finally woken up. She feels alive, up on the mound.

Which, you know. Means she’s perfectly aware of what's going on when people start getting beaned. It’s pretty awful. She doesn’t really - it’s not a _thing_ , you know, that she really wants to talk to the others about. It’s better now people just flicker and shiver with the feedback. It’s so much better. The fans aren’t so on edge whenever she steps out there. Is this what Mike felt like, when he started writing about how they’d yell _Townsend_ at him? At least when she's out there, she hasn't got space in her head to think about all these questions. 

Her fingers check for a pulse again. Still going strong. 

They wrote other stuff for Mike, though, is the thing. Every time they mention his name, somebody inevitably calls _“A credit to his team”_ back. There’s always some new story for her to hear, whenever he comes up. She regrets not spending more time with him before the uh, before _it_ happened. He stepped up to help save her, even though he knew what the price was gonna be for him to do it. That takes something, you know? Not everyone could do that. That takes _heart._

Her fingers find their way back to her wrist. The steady beat of Mike’s pulse answers her.

Yeah. The splort could really do with having more players like Townsend, she thinks. Mike had a heart big enough for the whole team and all the fans, even after everything that happened. Big enough to share, even with her.

Jaylen flicks the radio on. It's a bit static-y, but the song that comes on makes her smile anyway. She recognises this one - it's about half done, if she remembers right. As she sits back to listen, she wonders if he can hear it on his end too, wherever it is he is now. She hopes he can. This one always was his favourite, after all. 


End file.
